There was huge surprise when Anglo American appointed Cynthia Carroll as chief executive. She has extensive experience, but is she the right person to restructure this most traditional mining giant?

It was Tuesday morning, just four hours after the world’s third-largest mining company had announced its new chief executive — and the City was scandalised.

“It’s a woman,” spluttered one analyst.

“They’ll never accept her,” warned another. “Anglo is run by empire-builders at one end and bruising miners at the other. The appointment of a woman tea lady would be seen as too advanced by the first lot, and a distraction by the others.”

I could find few in the City who had ever heard of Cynthia Carroll and yet, amazingly, gender wasn’t all that was wrong with her.

More outrage stemmed from the fact that Anglo’s executives have always been South African men and long-serving company veterans. As one insider said: “This American president of something called Alcan Primary Metal is demonstrably neither.” Even Anglo’s share price